Rejected and Taken
by StarkContrastStartles
Summary: Ziva abandoned a daughter who has now been kidnapped but is the girl as innocent as she seems or is she an assassin worse than anyone could have imagined?  Malachi/Ziva Eli/Ziva
1. The News

The teacher looked up from his desk and surveyed the quiet classroom. His eyes lingered on a few of his student's, focusing to check that they were actually working as diligently as they appeared. Their exams were coming up soon and the whole year seemed to have been gripped by a desire to make up for all the work they had been avoiding for the last two years. As his eyes swept over the classroom they narrowed. The girl in the corner, usually quiet and hardworking, was not even attempting to look like she was working. She was staring at her hands, twisting her fingers manically and shifting her feet around on the floor. The teacher made to stand up to go over to her but was interrupted by the door bursting open.

Five men, completely dressed in black, strode into the room. They carried large, imposing guns in their arms and raised them at him. The teacher shrank back into his chair, not knowing what to do. The worried girl in the corner now stood up. She stared at them defiantly and began to walk towards them. All eyes were on her. She walked up to the men and raised her chin.

'Took you long enough,' she said finally in a cold, heartless voice. The man she was addressing laughed deeply.

'You haven't changed,' he remarked.

'Did you ever think I would?' she questioned. The man shook his head.

'It was unlikely,' he agreed.

The teacher stood up, thoroughly disconcerted.

'Wh – who – are you?' he faltered. The men in black ignored him.

'Come,' the leader ordered to the girl. She turned, took one last look at the class and swung back around to follow the men out of the building.

Her fingers had been run raw. She had been typing on the computer all day. She glanced across to the desk opposite hers and sighed as she saw her partner's head on his desk, snoozing. He had most likely finished and was reaping the rewards of being fast. She was efficient and quick at her work but she had been trained to be thorough and relentless so she always took more time over her work than him. She sighed once more and turned back to her screen.

When the phone rang it was a more than welcome interruption to Ziva. Her slender fingers shot out to flick it off its cradle so she didn't lose the opportunity of a new task. The news she heard, though, was not welcome. The ringing had woken Tony and he stared at her in concern as her tanned face slowly whitened to become ashen. She nodded, her lips parted in horror, forgetting that, as she was on the telephone, her correspondent could not see her answer him. She hung up and stared out in front of her.

'Ziva? You okay?' Tony inquired gently. Her eyes met his and she swallowed.

'I – ' she started but was interrupted by a call from above. Vance was standing on the stairs staring down at her.

'Agent David! May I see you?' Ziva nodded and ran up the stairs two at a time without looking back at Tony. At the top of the stairs, Ziva passed Gibbs. He gave her a sympathetic glance and carried on past her. As he strode into the bullpen, Tony stood up, inquiringly. Gibbs turned to him slowly. McGee also appeared at that time and looked from Gibbs to Tony puzzled. They seemed to be having a similar moment to what Ziva and Tony had when they stared at each other for prolonged amounts of time with what Abby had aptly decided was eye sex. Except, there was not longing or lust in either of the men's eyes, only concern. Gibbs sighed and opened his mouth resignedly.

'Pack your bags. Both of you. We are all going to England,' he ordered.

'England?' McGee asked.

'And Ziva?' Tony interrupted.

'Ziva is coming too,' Gibbs replied. 'It was her daughter that was kidnapped.' Tony's eyes widened.

'What?' he yelped.

Ziva appeared behind him. 'It was my daughter,' she agreed.

'You never said you had a daughter,' McGee gasped. 'How did you keep that a secret?'

'There was no secret to keep. She lives in Israel with friends. I never raised her. I haven't even spoken to her for a year.'

'But – she's your daughter?' McGee repeated.

'I wasn't ready for children. And now, now she doesn't want anything to do with me. And I don't blame her.'

Tony had been silent up until now, his brain slowly processing the new information.

'The father?' he croaked at last.

'Gidon.'


	2. Thoughts on the daughter

Ziva sat there, motionless and staring blankly out the window. Tony glanced over the teacher's shoulder and watched her, concern etched into his sharp features. He forced himself to focus on the account the teacher was telling him but his mind kept wandering back to Ziva.

'_Focus,' _he told himself sharply. _'Listening will help Ziva more in the long run because then we can find her daughter.' _He frowned . _'Whom she never told me about,' _he added drily.

'And then they left. She just followed behind like a lost puppy,' the teacher concluded. Tony stared at him and then nodded abruptly.

'Thanks.' Tony smiled at the man and walked over to his partner. 'You okay?' Her eyes flicked towards him but didn't focus on his face. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. His face contorted into some kind of sympathetic grimace and he sat down next to her. 'This was where she sat?' It was more of a question than a statement even though he knew the answer. When he got no reply he continued to talk to her, saying what he imagined her saying to him if she was a bit more open. 'You are sitting where she is sitting, seeing what she saw everyday, but still you don't feel her. You don't know her.' Ziva bit her lip. 'You didn't even know she was here.' Tony's voice had risen to a squeak. He had started off trying to cheer her up but now that he thought about the situation all his sympathy towards his friend had evaporated and he was just angry. She had abandoned her daughter. Just left her. And even now that her daughter was gone, she didn't seem to be showing any kind of remorse for ditching her daughter, she just seemed to be sad. Tony opened his mouth again to voice these feelings but shut it again. Anything he said now he would regret later. He felt fury bubbling inside of him, threatening to boil over. All this time he had felt sorry for her because of her bad relationship with her father, she had fuelled this sympathy, and yet all this time, she had her own daughter who she had done the exact same thing to. He took one more look at her drooping face, spun around on his heel and strode off. Ziva didn't deserve his attention but her daughter did. She was just a child who needed to be saved. He had to forget that she was Ziva's daughter. She was a girl who needed him. An unloved child.

He thought back over the story told by the teacher. Five armed men walk into the classroom, the girl stands up, chats with the men and leaves, perfectly willingly apparently. Yet, Gibbs was insisting that is was a kidnapping but he wouldn't tell who was telling him. Tony doubted that Gibbs knew who ultimately was the holder of this vital piece of knowledge but suspected that Gibbs knew that whoever this person was, they knew or they had enough authority over Gibbs to persuade him that he knew though Tony couldn't think of anyone who had any kind of genuine authority over Gibbs. Tony shook his head fiercely to rid himself of these confusing thoughts. To find this girl he needed to be thinking clearly and if he got worked up about Ziva and Gibbs that wouldn't happen. He nodded to himself and, consolidating this thought with forceful actions, he decided to question the students to find out about the girl.

Ziva watched Tony jog down the stairs. She could tell that he was angry with her but she found that strangely she didn't care. Usually when he was angry she knew that he would forgive her soon but this time she wasn't so sure. The anger was a different kind to the anger he had had about Rivkin, instead of fury there was hostility and disapproval. These thoughts came to her calmly but even the fact that she didn't care did not alarm her. All her life she had buried her feelings but when it came to her estranged daughter she did not just bury them but she expelled them. She never allowed herself to think of her or question how she might be feeling and now the forced emotionless attitude towards her daughter had become natural. She wasn't making a conscious effort not to be affected by this, it just happened. Her face had become pale when she got the news because she had almost forgotten her daughter and hearing the name had startled her but she hadn't been worried for her daughter. Her daughter did not need any sympathy or concern.

Her daughter did not deserve any sympathy or concern. Her daughter was not worth spending a second investigating. Yet here she was. Trying to find her daughter. The daughter that deserved to be abandoned. She had no choice.


	3. The father's opinion

Gidon hurled his phone across the room. He had been calling Ziva constantly for the whole night. He had held off until the time distance had made the hour in England not completely anti-social but after showing Ziva that courtesy she did not answer him. His relationship with Ziva was strained, had been strained since that night and especially strained since Director David had sent him to fetch Ziva from NCIS after their mission to Somalia. He completely disapproved of her attitude towards their daughter. Although his relationship with his daughter was fiery, he did love her and made an effort to convey that to her. Ziva had never even tried.

He hated her for leaving him with the sole responsibility of raising their child but he also understood. He despised her for abandoning their daughter but he also envied her for not having to deal with all the problems she caused. He pitied Ziva for not wanting to know her only child but almost wished he had made the same decision. He also hated himself for even thinking these blasphemous thoughts. She was his daughter. His only child. He created her. She was part of him. But made up of the worst parts.

He unclenched his fists and took a couple of tentative steps towards the filing cabinet before chastising himself for being so idiotic and striding purposely over. He rootled around for a while. 'Q_uite a long while actually_,' he thought, _'considering that it was his only photo of his only child that he was trying to find. It shouldn't be that difficult to locate.' _But he had thrust it to the back of the cabinet. Every time he accidentally came across it he pushed it further back. Any thoughts of his daughter hurt him in ways he did not know were possible. He finally found it and took it out. He found that he was squeezing his eyes tightly shut. '_You're acting like a spoilt toddler,' _he told himself._ 'Get a grip.' _He slowly opened his eyes and saw the photo. The girl was standing in a field holding an automatic gun. She had a finger on the trigger and had a taunting smirk on her face. The butt of the gun was trained on the camera. To anyone else it would have looked like a joke, a bit of fun, maybe a tad tasteless for a ten year old to be holding such a weapon, probably not the best idea, but she wouldn't fire it, would she? She was just a kid. To him, it was sinister. There was every chance that she had shot the photographer, he never knew who took it. His daughter was dangerous.


	4. Daughter's childhood

Ziva shivered. She had blocked out her daughter for so long and now she was being forced to remember her. All the feelings that had been locked away for a lifetime, her daughter's lifetime, were being revisited, the dust being shaken off.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The day that she found out she was pregnant swam before her eyes. She had been so scared, so worried and strangely happy. She was terrified because she loved her job and she couldn't foresee her future anymore; anxious because she was not naturally maternal or even caring; and happy because after shoving all emotions to the back of her mind, she would now have to confront all of them and they would all be happy.

Her fists clenched shut. Telling Gidon had been hard but he seemed to be fine with the bombshell. Telling her father had been even more difficult but he also seemed pleased. She hadn't particularly like being pregnant but she had gotten through it telling herself that it would all be worth it. As it turned out, it wasn't.

A single tear trickled down her cheek. The day of the birth had been exciting and tiring. She felt like she had known the baby presented to her for years. She knew immediately that she could love her child and could care for it. That had all changed pretty quickly.

She had taken four months off work and had been deathly bored by the holiday so when her father called requesting her assistance for a mission she had accepted gladly. The job took her to Turkey and then to Bulgaria and although she missed her baby she felt safer and more at home than she would have done looking after a newborn. She felt secure in the knowledge that she had left the child in capable hands. Her aunt Nettie had always been great with children. She was gone for ten months and by the end all she wanted to do was get home and see her child. As she stood in the airport, her eyes searching the crowd for her familiar faced aunt and her unrecognisable daughter. Finally, she saw her aunt but she was not holding a child. Frowning, she hurried over, desperately willing her Aunt to explain that she had a cold so couldn't come. However, her aunt did not.

'Ziva, Ziva. I am sorry. I couldn't stop them,' her aunt wailed. Ziva's mouth opened, aghast. She had no idea what Nettie was screaming about but it didn't sound good.

'Nettie. What happened?' she asked, forcing Nettie's flailing hands down to her sides.

'They took her,' Nettie cried, still hysterical.

'Who? Who?' Ziva screamed at her poor aunt, losing all patience with the emotional woman.

'Her father's friends.' Ziva let out a sigh of relief. Her daughter was not in any real trouble, Nettie was just missing her terribly. But then Nettie continued and Ziva's relief was proved to be unfounded. 'They took her away to Russia to train her. They want her to become a killer. They are training her. They came in the night and took her. They wouldn't tell me where. Her father did not know about it but he told me that they would be in Russia. I made Eli look for her but they couldn't find her.' Her aunt let all this information out in one garbled breath so Ziva only caught parts but she heard enough to make her blood run cold.

Ziva took a team of Mossad officers to Russia and they found that they had taken her daughter to North Korea. Gidon knew nothing of the friends' intentions and nobody had suspected that the friends, trained Mossad assassins, had gone rogue. Ziva went to North Korea but couldn't find her daughter. After just two months of searching she gave up. She had never known her daughter and they would not be mistreating her. Ziva had lost all love for her child, in her exertions to find her, the affection had gotten misplaced and forgotten.

Ziva returned to Israel and continued her life, rarely thinking of her lost daughter. However, it was only six years before she saw her again.

Her daughter was seven years old when she first went back to Israel with her new guardians. On the cargo plane that was flying them there, she amused herself with the loaded gun on the seat beside her. They had hijacked the plane, slaughtering the crew and through them out of the door on the ascent to the sky. The girl, already trained how to shoot a gun and throw a knife, had pushed the pilot out, with a relish unknown to every other seven year old in existence. Young children sometimes enjoy pulling the legs off an ant or taunting a puppy but they don't generally take pleasure in throwing a human being out of a plane at 600 feet. The girl had grown up around death and could not remember a week without seeing someone die. Her closest friend, the man who had originally taken her, had been shot two weeks prior to her current visit, and they were now flying to Israel to attend his funeral. The girl cocked her head. It was funny, all those deaths and this was her first funeral, the first time that she honoured a memory of life. Ziva knew all this because she talked to her daughter after the funeral. She had gotten a call that afternoon telling her that her long lost daughter was in Israel. Ziva leapt from the chair. After not having thought about her daughter for many years, she would now get to see how she had turned out. She was horrified. The way that her child had grown up, the girl she had become, was worse than anything Ziva had ever seen. She had witnessed child suicide bombers blowing themselves and others to bits, child soldiers killing men without blinking an eye, but her daughter, her own offspring, was worse than them. Her daughter sat in front of her mother whom she didn't know, she should have been either ecstatic or nervous, not calm, and detailed to her mother her favourite method of killing. The description that accompanied had been extremely graphic even for an experienced assassin but this was a little girl, her little girl.

Ziva also found out that her daughter's favourite colour was red, her favourite food was lamb, her favourite subject at school was history and her favourite book was Doctor Zhivago (she didn't understand it but she loved the words) but the phrase that Ziva could never forget, that haunted her even if she didn't think of her daughter, was the account of her favourite method of extermination.

Ziva bit her lip and drew blood as she remembered the immortal words. _'First you have to make them suffer. Show them that they have been beaten by a little girl of seven, that you win and that they will die a loser. I always twist their fingers off their hand, then snap them one by one in front of their face, the look they adopt can never be bettered. If you have time, prise their fingernails off as well, it makes them squirm with pain even though they cannot feel it. Then, take your knife, and slit their arm. If you can hit the nerves on your way down, even better, their disembodied arm dances in front of you, twitching manically. I generally follow this by kicking their spine. This makes them nice and weak, helpless to your power, when you finish them off by slitting their throat with a knife so sharp they don't know what you did. They don't feel a thing until the blood starts gushing down their front. They die with a puzzled look on their face. _When she finished she looked up, triumphant. Her face was glowing, her eyes gleaming and her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She smiled brightly at her birth mother before running out of the room with not so much as a backwards glance.

That was the last time she saw her daughter. Everything else she knew came from a secondary source. Her father told her some things, Ari others. Both of them were close to the girl. They were the only two people other than herself, Gidon and Nettie that knew the girl's real name. Ziva frowned once more. She was certain that Eli would remember it, Gidon called her by her new name, Ari was dead and she... She had blocked the name out. It was too personal, too painful to recall. And now, even if she tried as hard as she could she could not remember the name she had given her daughter, the only thing she had given her daughter. Her daughter. Uggh. She shuddered.


	5. Mossad arrives

Gibbs stood in the doorway of their makeshift office in the local police station, watching Ziva. He couldn't quite work out what was wrong with the scene in front of him, but he knew that something was amiss. Ziva had that look in her eyes, the tired look that she had adopted right after Somalia. He had not seen that look since then and was worried about her now that it had resurfaced. His phone jerked him out of his thoughts and he answered it quicker than usual. He nodded and hung up without speaking. A hand tapped his shoulder and he turned around sharply. Tony took a step back as his boss spun round to face him. He offered a hesitant smile.

'Boss?' he faltered.

'That was Vance. Mossad is on their way,' Gibbs stated flatly. Tony nodded. He glanced over his muscular shoulder at his solitary partner. She was twining her fingers and nibbling her lip. He eyes bounced back to focus on his boss questioningly. 'Four hours.' Tony nodded again.

The four hours were spent frantically trying to solve the kidnapping before Mossad got to England: sifting through the interviews, checking security camera footage at private airstrips nearby and trying vainly to find out anything on the daughter's life after her departure from her guardians and trainers. Ziva was given the mindless task of checking the camera footage so that she was as removed from the investigation into her daughter's doings as possible in order to protect her from anything untoward that they might uncover. They didn't have to bother. She remained a mystery to them. When it was nearing the four hours, Gibbs almost felt relieved that their old friends from Tel Aviv were coming because they should be able to provide more information on the girl.

When Mossad arrived in their hired SUVs at the small local police station they inspired panic in some of the policemen and awe in others. They all carried guns at their waists and knives on their calves. The English policemen had never been trained to carry a gun and had never come across so many people with so many guns. The town was quite large but mostly middle class and gun crime was not a big problem. Mostly it was heated legal suits that got out of hand, underage drinking and drug dealers.

Gibbs watched the proceedings from his small temporary office with a small chuckle. He studied each officer who stepped out of the doors, emerging from behind the tinted glass shields. He recognised a few from their trip to Israel but hadn't spoken to any. Until Gidon, Liat and Director David stepped out of the final car flanked on all sides by bodyguards. Then, Gibbs drew in a sharp, uncharacteristic breath and curled his lip in thought.

Ziva was also watching the dramatic entrance of her old allegiance. Unlike her new boss, she had been expecting her father and her daughter's father because she alone knew the significance of her daughter. However, she was about to find out that she didn't know quite the extent of her daughter's importance.

Eli David stepped out of the car and, keeping his head facing straight forward, his eyes rose to look into the upstairs window of the building. He saw his only surviving child staring at him with pain in her eyes. His pupils widened before returning to their cold, natural state. He turned to Ben Gidon who was also watching Ziva intently. David nodded to him and lead the party inside, passing the local cops without a word, smiling inwardly at their crestfallen faces after he snubbed each and every one of their welcoming smiles.

Gibbs met them at the foot of the stairs with a curt nod. Eli's head tilted slightly but he maintained his power over Gibbs. Ziva appeared behind her boss, clearly showing her alliances to her father. If Eli was at all hurt by this gesture, he did not let it show on his motionless face. He was here for his granddaughter, not his daughter. Gibbs took the gathering up the narrow stairs and into the cramped room which was to serve the whole party. He had warned the police officers that cooping NCIS and Mossad in the same room would lead to violence but had been told that no alternative could be provided. He surmised that the policeman in charge had become a little miffed at all the hospitality that was being thrust upon him. However, this arrangement could be damaging to Ziva's state of mind. He sighed privately. He wasn't going to let Mossad see the toll this case was having on his team's relationships.

Tony had watched the arrival of the cars from the other side of the street. Once they had all gone in, he turned and walked away to the internet cafe they had secured for McGee. The whole business was now rented by them for the day. He knocked on the locked door and waited for McGee to let him in. Tony flung himself into an armchair in the corner of the cafe and watched McGee's fingers fly across the keyboard. McGee was uncomfortable with being watched so closely and fought to keep his concentration on the screen for only a few minutes before giving in and swinging round to return Tony's gaze.

'Yes?' he inquired.

'Nothing,' Tony replied calmly.

'Well, stop staring then,' McGee countered irritably.

'Just checking you're working efficiently, that this case isn't affecting you.'

'I always work efficiently,' McGee protested, rising to Tony's ruse. 'And of course this case is affecting me, its Ziva's daughter who's been kidnapped.'

'ZIva's estranged daughter,' Tony corrected the junior agent. McGee's annoyed expression dissipated and his eyes became fatherly and gentle.

'Tony –' he ventured.

'I had better be getting back to work.' Tony leapt out of his chair and had bolted through the door before McGee could say anymore. Tony did not return to the office but called a taxi and went to the school. It was empty and he wasn't interrupted as he paced the classroom that earlier that day had been vacated by its armed visitors and the girl. His partner's daughter. His partner who was watching him, he realised.

'Ziva,' he called. She pushed open the door and entered the room, her eyes avoiding the chair which she had been glued to, trying to feel her daughter's presence. 'Shouldn't you be at the station with Mossad?' Tony asked. Ziva shook her head.

'It got too much. What they were saying was – not what I had expected.' Ziva's mind was still reeling from the disclosures made by her father and Gidon before she had fled back to the last place her daughter had been. The revelations had been too much. She was not quite sure what to make of her daughter anymore and she wanted to connect with her.


	6. The daughter's point of view

Her eyes were static, not conveying any of the writhing emotions behind their glassy gaze. Her arms were tense, itching for job to do. Her legs were ready, waiting for their upcoming use in a fight. Ziva's daughter was prepared for anything that life threw at her and was going to punch her way through anyone who tried to make her feel differently. Her opponents had made it their challenge to force her to crack. Their new ambition in life was to witness her crying at their hand. To an onlooker that would seem cruel but she encouraged it and she always got her way. She wasn't spoilt or demanding. All she ever wanted was something to do, anything to occupy her busy mind, to keep herself from torturing her heart with thoughts of her morals or relationships.

The man watching her was enthralled by her collected appearance but he knew her too well to be fooled by it. He was overwhelmed with memories of all their many meetings. He was a trained assassin, the best in the whole of the Russian Federation. He had racked up a running tally of over three hundred victims who had died directly at his hand, not including the others who had died by those in his command. He was a professional killer and had never been beaten. Not even by her. She had never won outright; there was always the element of escape. He was an organised character, who planned every attack obsessively, but whenever he was preparing to try to kill her, he left it to chance and snap decisions. She was impulsive and unpredictable. Sometimes she toyed with him, other times she fought her way out of his reach but this time she had stood up and followed him.

She knew that someone was watching her and she knew who it was. Even after they had left the school grounds he had kept his balaclava on, but she knew who he was. He was the man who had tried to kill her countless times, had saved her life a couple of times and loved her faithfully even if he wouldn't admit it.

He watched her eyes close slowly and open again. He longed to join her and sweep her up in his arms, just as he had done two years ago when he had pulled her bloodied body off the floor and charged through a condemned building, counting down the seconds before it would blow up. He was irrationally protective of her and although he needed her dead for political reasons, he would thwart any assassination plan by any other man except himself. He would be the one to kill her; no one else had that authority. But one day she would die. It was fate.

Her mind was churning and her heart was pounding. She needed to decide whether to invite him in and talk to him or remain facing away and avoid the inevitable difficult conversation that would touch too many sore spots for comfort. Having someone to play against, someone who could rattle her, a nemesis was essential for her, she knew that. She understood herself perfectly. She knew what would mess her up and what she could handle. She knew her limits which would have been a blessing if she had kept to them. But she ignored her psychological state, citing it irrelevant, and continued on her path of self destruction, not driven by a desire for justice but pursuing vengeance on all who threatened those with a better life than her. She came across as distant and compassionless, but, although she had no issues with destroying innocent people in her path to catch the danger, she was completely selfless and would always put others above herself on her priorities. She was insignificant to her which allowed her to take risks no one else would even contemplate. The absence of self respect had created the ultimate assassin, agent and machine of destruction.

However, recently that power had been harnessed by Mossad and used by them to take out threats to Israel in a controlled manner. She had been raised by rogue Mossad agents so had been taught to use unnecessary force to take out their targets. But, the rogue agents had once been clean and they had retained all of their training, even if they had added a little of their own, and so all the basic requirement for Mossad were present and all they had had to do was refine her tactics a little and, voila, they had a capable Mossad assassin. She soon proved herself to be more than just capable, she became their most valued asset and was given the hard targets to eliminate. She would get close to them; infiltrate their paranoid inner circle before striking. This way, she would also gain useful intelligence about their covert operations which could be used to take down the rest of the group. She went far beyond the boundaries of expectations. She soon became their leading undercover agent as well. She was still only a child at this point, although it was easy to forget that she was not. Mossad had extracted her from her uncontrollable guardians and taken her in hand when she was just eleven years old. She was still impressionable although already as skilled as a grown man. She was retrained for eight months and began work as a Mossad assassin when she was twelve. She started taking undercover jobs at the tender age of thirteen. She could make herself look older but there was a limit to the miracles of make up and posture and her role could not exceed sixteen so she played school child and befriended the daughter of the target or got a job as the gum chewing, clueless paper girl. She threw herself into every job she was offered and never turned any work down. Eli felt a special affection for the child and knew that he would never have to question her loyalty as he did with his daughter. His granddaughter, although extremely similar to Ziva as a young Mossad officer, offered him her unconditional love, much like a dog. He had no reservations in referring to her in those derogatory terms because she would be flattered by the comparison if he had ever told her of it.

He had met with Ziva, his conquest's mother, a few times. He had not seen Ziva since she left Mossad permanently to join the Americans so he did not know how she had changed but the last time they had spoken, he had been struck by both the subtle similarities and the obvious differences between the two. Ziva had become overwhelmed by the brutality of Mossad's treatment of their officers and had found a haven in her liaison position at NCIS. Her daughter had made her nest in the comparatively warm arms of Mossad, escaping the demands of terrorist life. At NCIS, Ziva had retained some of her intimidating, violent persona but had mellowed considerably and while nobody would ever accuse her daughter of mellowing, the rough edges of her aggressive training had been ironed out by her new training although she held firmly onto her base beliefs of the necessity of killing, torture and punishment. Any means necessary was the philosophy that she lived by and the motto that had driven Ziva away from her Mossad brethren.

These thoughts fired up a sleeping compassion for his captive and, on an impulse, he threw open the door. Her head lifted almost imperceptibly and he could feel the anticipation in both of them.

'Miriam,' he called using her birth name. She had changed it to Frieda, meaning war, after she had been taken to Russia to train. Since then, she had had many names and aliases but Miriam would always be her first name, the one given to her by her mother. The one that Ziva regretted giving to her because she irrationally blamed her name choice for her disappearance. Miriam meant rebellious and bitterness. Her father had always called her Tsipporah after she had returned to Israel. She remembered the day that he had first called her that clearly. It was the day after she had arrived and she was standing on the balcony of her hotel room staring out across the border to Jordan. Ben-Gidon had watched her silently before coming up to her and putting a reassuring arm on her shoulder.

'We don't want to hold you down,' he whispered. Her eyes had widened in alarm and she twisted round to face him. He had picked up on the fear that she had been keeping inside her since the day that Mossad agents had burst into the cottage in Hungary. It was that moment that she realised that he wasn't a stranger to her, he understood her just as well as her old friends had. 'You shouldn't push away who you are. You are flight risk and we would love you to stay but if you need to leave, nobody will stop you. You are a free bird.' And then he bent over and kissed the top of her head. She had never been kissed there before. 'My free bird, my Tsipporah,' he murmured.

'Miriam,' her captor called again and she was roughly taken from Israel back to England. She turned.

'Yes?' she asked coldly, shaken by his use of her name. She hadn't heard it for years.

'You are here for a reason,' he stated flatly. She took a menacing step towards him.

'I guessed,' she replied.

'I won't kill you this time,' he added, unsure what else to say to this.

'I know,' she returned again.

'It's time you stopped running,' he told her.

'I agree.' He was thoroughly disconcerted by her short, honest answers. He couldn't remember the last time that she had told him the truth.

'Your mother is here.' He studied her face for any reaction but it was passive. He had learnt from her that you could tell more from what a person hides than what they disclose to you but her face wasn't hiding anything for once. He had never experienced this version of her.

'Frieda.' He reverted to her chosen name to try to get her to communicate in a way he understood.

'I don't care. I have no feelings for her. She is a liability. She betrayed Mossad and her family. She would not be an asset.' Although this violent resistance had been what expected, it still unnerved him to hear her flatly renounce her mother as impractical to her uses.

'Frieda, she doesn't need to be an asset, she's your mother.' Frieda shrugged.

'Why did you come?' he asked.

'I don't know,' she answered. 'You seemed a wee bit down. Sometimes I need to go east on people not as good as me.' He snorted.

'I have called Mossad, told them where to find you. They should be coming now. With your mother.' Frieda shrugged again.

'You don't think I can escape,' she taunted. 'I will not be here when they arrive. I will be waiting in Israel.'

'I invested in some better chains,' he explained. 'You will not have time to yank yourself free.' She considered this information before replying.

'I have no feelings for her. It will not damage me to see her. You will just hurt her in the end.' He was discomfited. He had orchestrated the whole thing to make her crack but along the way he had developed sympathy for his charge and now he wanted her to reunite with her mother. He was not a romantic man but he felt his heart tug with anticipation every time he imagined the scene. Now, Frieda would ruin the whole plan.

Ziva sat silently in the back of the SUV next to Tony. She could sense his disapproval. She knew that he did not think she deserved to meet her daughter after what she had done and truthfully she agreed fully. However, her father had decided for her and she had no choice but to follow him. She was apprehensive about seeing her daughter again but felt a slight attachment to Miriam now that she had discovered a new side to her daughter's heart. A side that connected with Eli and Malachi, that worked with Mossad to apprehend terrorists rather than aid them. She was nervous but she also really wanted to know her daughter again and as they approached the warehouse where Miriam was being held her stomach clenched. It was almost time.


	7. Please help

This chapter will be replaced but I am stuck on how to finish it.

Would you prefer:

A cheesy reunion with a happy ending

Daughter rejects Ziva Daughter kills Ziva

Daughter commits suicide

Captor kills daughter because she doesn't accept Ziva

Daughter tries to kill Ziva so Tony shoots her

Daughter fights Ziva but then they get on fine

Daughter tries to shoot Gibbs so Ziva shoots her – like with Ari

Daughter accepts Ziva

Daughter does escape so Ziva doesn't meet her

Or other

Also, would you like:

Tiva sex

No Tiva sex

Tiva chemistry but no sex (like they do on TV)

Tony and daughter sex

No sex at all

Or other

And if sex, how graphic?

Please help me in a review. And do you think that just one more chapter would be enough?


	8. The impending reunion

Frieda extended her fingers to prevent cramp and yawned lazily. She had been chained up many times before so it didn't daunt her but usually she would be straining to pop the bolt off the wall so she could escape but this time she wasn't. She believed that Mossad and NCIS would arrive before she could put escape because pulling chains off the wall required a lot of time and effort. She had proved herself to be strong enough but she would not have the time so she had decided to sit and wait. She was not a patient person and was deathly bored. She raised her hand to push the dirty hair out of her face but her hand paused in mid air and her ears pricked up when she heard the distant screech of tyres on the gravel road. She bit her lip. Although she didn't particularly care about the impending meeting with her mother, she did want to look like herself; powerful, proud and dangerous; not grimy, weak and calm. She tossed the hair out of her face and heaved herself off the floor. She tugged on the chains so that her arms did not look restricted and splayed her legs so that she would tower above any people entering her temporary prison and waited, her heaving breaths pounding through the silent room.

Ziva chewed on her lip. She was sitting erect on the cold leather of the car, peering desperately out of the window. Every so often she would pull back, alarmed by her eagerness to arrive as she realised that she was petrified of seeing her daughter once more. She had a new conception of her child after what Mossad had been telling her and her head was throbbing from all the conflicting emotions. She turned to Tony and studied his kind, concerned face. The edges of his lips twitched up into a smile and his forehead creased. She reached up and smoothed out the frown with her index finger. He shuddered at the contact between his sweaty forehead and her smooth, soft finger. She noticed the reaction and shifted her body closer to his, the seatbelt cutting into her shoulder. He tentatively lowered his hand off his lap to nestle in between their trousered legs. Ziva welcomed the sexual electricity between the two as it distracted her from the destination of the drive. Another reason for the excitement she got from the touch drifted into her mind but after letting it float for a fleeting second she pushed it firmly away. Her tongue slipped out of her mouth, brushing her lips apart and stopped with the tip protruding from her small mouth. Tony glanced down at the pink attraction and narrowed his eyes, debating whether or not to let them drink in the picture. Ziva noticed his head inching closer to hers and she sucked her tongue back in noisily. Tony's nose wrinkled at the slurping sound as he had trained it to do even though he relished the sounds she made because it aided his sexual fantasies with her. The car stopped suddenly and his hand shot out to protect his face, pushing Ziva's leg away from his. Her parted lips moved into a slight pout at the apparent rejection and she pushed open the door sulkily, avoiding his apologetic gaze. He hit the seat in frustration and stamped his foot as he alighted from the SUV, which had harboured his few moments of seduction. He considered rekindling the lost moment by putting a comforting arm around Ziva under the pretence of being a supportive partner rather than a horny partner but when he saw Ziva's pained expression he realised that she was in need of some actual support not phony, sexual support. Her head pointed towards him and he nodded encouragingly.

Eli David had left the vicinity of the vehicles and was cautiously proceeding towards the warehouse. He was wary of the tip that he had received from an anonymous source and was aware that it could likely be a trap. However, he knew that he had no alternative because he wanted his grand daughter back. He understood the irony in the situation, Ziva had loved and trusted him and he had let her down, and now he had found someone that he loved and trusted but he didn't feel any real love or trust being returned. He gestured to his officers to follow him and continued towards the building. IT had been hastily made in the 1960s with concrete and although it was sloppy construction work it looked sturdy, as if it could withstand a fire fight. He hesitated at the entrance and listened carefully for any revealing sounds but he heard nothing. His Mossad officers had stationed themselves in a ring around the warehouse and he nodded approvingly. NCIS was hanging back near the cars uncertainly and the Director smiled at the inefficiency of his daughter's most recent loyalty. Ziva was standing between the two groups, alone, in the position which she thought she had left behind when she quit her job as liaison officer. She twisted to face the NCIS team behind her and then looked back at Mossad, trying to break through the confusion and choose the right group to go with. Her father turned to her and beckoned confidentially. She realised that the choice was not between NCIS and Mossad but whether or not she wanted to see her daughter again. A pleased flush broke out on her olive skin and a grin spread across her face as she ran towards the warehouse. Gidon held out his hand to stop her and counted down from five on his fingers. When his hand curled into a fist, Mossad officers kicked down the door and rushed in, guns raised and fingers tensed on the triggers. Eli followed quickly but dignified and ordered his men to search the building. Ziva started to help them but Eli stopped her with a curt order which she obeyed instantly. A triumphant battle cry came the back of the warehouse and the family hurried over united in their quest to find the girl. Ziva hung back as they approached the door, her cold feet returning.

She watched Eli walk into the room and let out a tumult of suppressed emotion. She watched Gidon disappear from her sight as he ran across the room. She watched the Mossad officers sway in and out of her line of vision, each stepping forward to greet the unseen girl. She watched her own feet take her involuntarily towards the doorway, the entrance that kept her from her daughter. She watched her tanned hand clutch the frame of the arch and her hair swing in front of her face as she turned sharply to see her daughter for the first time in years. She watched her daughter laugh and smile. She watched tears trickle down her face. She watched the scene disappear from sight as she ran out of the room. She watched Tony start as she stumbled out of the warehouse. She watched him run towards her. She watched the world close in on her. She watched the ground shoot towards her face and then she watched nothing as the two collided.


	9. Ziva meets her daughter

Tony carefully lifted Ziva's head onto his lap and stroked the hair off her unconscious face. He had felt her pulse to check that she was still alive and so could only patiently wait for her to regain her senses. Her eyes fluttered open minutes after she had collapsed and she smiled weakly as she stared up into Tony's face. She pushed herself out of his grasp and stood up on shaky legs. She turned towards the door into the warehouse and bit her lip. She had gnawed on it so often that day that it had been chewed into a bloody pulp. She winced as her teeth sank into the sensitive skin and instead ran her tongue lightly over the mess. Tony watched the motion with lusty eyes before reminding himself that Ziva was not in a position to be sexually frustrated as he obviously made her. He chuckled softly to himself at this lie and shook his head sadly. Mossad officers began to stream through the doors and piled themselves into the various cars.

Ziva waited for Gidon to appear, walking ahead of the girl who was laughing animatedly with a couple of officers. Ziva was struck by her daughter's beauty and felt proud of the girl she had jointly produced. Gidon passed her with a caring nod and the officers left the Miriam when they noticed Ziva. Eli was following her close behind and he prodded her back to suggest that she go and talk to her estranged mother. Ziva took a confident step forward and held out her hand. Her daughter ignored the gesture and swung around to return to the privacy of the warehouse. Ziva followed obediently into the room where her daughter had been held. She winced when she saw the chains now hanging loosely on the ground and was reminded of her own experience in Somalia.

'Why are you here?' her daughter asked in English.

'I wanted to see you again,' Ziva replied.

'Why?' Miriam asked again, this time in Hebrew.

Ziva hesitated before she answered her in Hebrew. 'I missed you.'

'Why?' Miriam repeated.

'You're my daughter.' It was stated plainly.

'I made sure that you were horrified with me. Why did you come back?' The words were spat out in a mixture of languages.

'What?' Ziva gasped. It had never occurred to her that her daughter had been trying to instil those feelings of disgust and terror in her. 'Why?'

'I did not need a mother. I needed no distractions. Most of it was the truth, just slightly embellished.' The statement had no emotion in it. 'I need you to hate me. I don't want to hurt you.' Some anguish was creeping into her voice but it remained level.

'You won't hurt me and I won't hurt you. I love you,' Ziva soothed. Her daughter shook her head stubbornly before walking outside. Ziva leant against the wall, all her energy gone. She stayed there motionless for no time at all before the door opened and two sets of feet returned. Ziva pushed herself off the wall with her foot and waited to see who it would be. She was expecting either some nondescript Mossad officers or her friends at NCIS but she was met with both. Miriam stood there, illuminated by the orange light shining through the doorway and Gibbs, standing stiffly by her side. Miriam took a step forward and Gibbs moved past her towards Ziva, noticing the tears in her eyes. As he stepped in front of Miriam, she thrust out a fist and knocked him to the ground. He lay there sprawled as she kicked him in the stomach. Ziva rushed over to stop the attack but was greeted by a fast moving fist in her face, throwing her onto her back. She leapt up and hurried back over to lend her assistance to her helpless boss but stopped short when Miriam pulled out a gun and pointed it at Gibbs's forehead.

Ziva dropped to her knees and pleaded desperately with her daughter for her boss's life. She had felt the force of the blow and knew that her daughter was exceptionally strong and she would not be overpowered by her relatively weak mother. Miriam shook her head, ignoring her mother's pleas and cocked the gun.

Ziva screamed as a gunshot went off and her tightly squeezed eyes opened. She gasped. There was no pool of blood around Gibbs and his eyes were still moving. Instead, it was Miriam that was lying on the floor, surrounded by deep red blood. And it was Tony holding the smoking gun by the door. Ziva let out a wail, unsure how she felt about this turn of events. The gun fell out of Tony's hand and he stared at them, shocked by his reactions. Ziva crawled across the floor to her bleeding, dying child to cradle her in her arms for the first time in fifteen years and the last time of her whole life. Gibbs sat up and frowned.

'She's...' he started but was interrupted by Miriam's calm voice.

'Not dead,' she finished companionably for Gibbs, the man she had been preparing to kill a few seconds earlier, before turning to Tony. 'You need to practise your aim. You missed my heart by several inches.' She twisted round to place her hands over the gaping hole in the right side of her chest.

Ziva stared into the abyss of red that was pooled on the floor. It reminded her of Ari after she had ploughed the bullet through his head. Her eyes slowly ascended until they fixed on Miriam's face. She was rewarded for her momentary burst of grief with a curt smile which, although it didn't show for very long on her face, stayed in her eyes for much longer as she heaved herself onto her feet, with blood dripping from the hole. She nodded at both Gibbs and Tony, stared at Ziva for a prolonged second before striding towards the door. Ziva returned the stare and kept her eyes fixed on her daughter as she left through the open door. She stood motionless as she listened to the roar of the engine disappearing and carrying her daughter away from her.

Her feelings were still conflicted and confused when it came to her daughter but she had resealable closure now. If she ever met her daughter again, which was likely now that she was on better terms with Gidon and Eli, she would be able to survive the encounter and possibly enjoy it. Miriam would no longer be a skeleton buried right at the back of the closet, behind all the other secrets that were still to come out.

_**Would you like Tiva in a next chapter or will that do as the ending?**_


End file.
